


Upon a Distant Shore

by ultranos



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Haibane Renmei
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-02
Updated: 2010-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-15 14:54:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/161936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultranos/pseuds/ultranos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kana dreams of water.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Upon a Distant Shore

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://holdouttrout.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**holdouttrout**](http://holdouttrout.dreamwidth.org/) for the beta. And feeding the plotbunny.

The first thing she remembers is water. Water was life and water was death. It was all around her. Not because she was swimming (it felt too cold for that), but she was standing on a plane of water, and she knew the walls were of water.

And in her hands, between them, she could make the water dance. Slip silver, reflecting light. Her face was not one she recognized. Softer, brown hair cut short across her features. The water rippled and formed something else. A fish roasting on a fire, but there was no fire in this room of water.

She did not know who she was. But she knew that the water called her.

They named her Kana. "River fish," after her dream.

* * *

The clocks fascinated her. How they could move, every little part important, every part vital to the operation. They measured the passage of time in a solid, steady, flowing way that sundials did not. The _tick-tock_ of clocks soothed her heart, reminding her of waves breaking upon the shore in that steady, relentless beat.

She had been nervous when she first asked her Master if she could work in the clock tower in the center of Glie. But he merely looked at her hands, and then grumbled at her to go get a cloth and start cleaning cogs.

He didn't refuse her because she was not a boy, despite her worn pants and shirt. Kana wasn't sure why this mattered.

* * *

"Kana, why are you just staring at the bucket?" Reki's dry voice startles her out of her daze, and Kana's somewhat surprised to find a mop between her hands.

She rubs the back of her neck sheepishly. "Sorry. My mind wandered off."

Reki gives her a look before walking off, cigarette dangling from her lips. Kana doesn't mention how she was thinking mopping the kitchen would be so much easier if she could _bend_ the water in the bucket.

She's not sure where the idea came from in the first place. Water doesn't bend, not outside of pipes. She doesn't think the others would be happy if she diverted a pipe to clean the kitchen.

She likes Old Home. It's warm and lived in. She doesn't mind the cold stone beneath her bare feet in the mornings. Even in winter, she'll sleep with her window open. It's no surprise, then, when the others give her the bulk of the outdoor chores, especially in winter.

Kana tries to ignore the concerned look Hikari gives her when she nearly walks outside into the snow without a coat for the fifth time that week. She doesn't quite meet Hikari's eyes as she takes the offered garment dangling from the other Haibane's fingers.

 _'What is wrong with me?'_

* * *

The dream is different. She's walking down a white corridor. It's mostly featureless, except sometimes there are flashes of blue. Once, she passes a window. She pauses to look out, but all she can see are the moon and stars. The moon shines soft light through the window. It is the only source of illumination she can find, but it is not enough to keep the corridor as light as it is.

There are no candles or torches. Something tells her that would be a bad idea.

She wishes it wasn't. It's cold. She looks down and finds she's wearing a blue parka, lined with fur around the wrists. It's old and worn and lived in, just like every thing else she has ever owned. This is unsurprising. Kana knows Haibane cannot own anything new, after all. But the parka is a different sort of worn. It's as if she's had it for a very long time.

She's never seen the parka before.

She continues walking down the corridor, boots echoing with each step. There's a end to the corridor, with a door going out to the open space.

Something tells her to start running. She needs to reach that open space. She does not know why.

Kana reaches the door.

She wakes up.

* * *

Rakka arrives. Kuu leaves. Reki leaves. Winter turns to spring. Spring turns to summer. Kana feels restless. There's something _missing_.

"You know I miss Reki too, but..." Rakka trails off when she realizes that Kana is standing five feet from her but is miles away.

"She knows. Reki needed her Day of Flight. It's something else, isn't it, Kana?" Kana blinks and scowls when Nemu taps her halo. Rakka goes pale for a moment and touches her own.

"I'm not going anywhere," Kana mutters, soothing Rakka, who turns her attention away to something the smaller children did. Kana glances out the window, but not before noticing Nemu's slight smile.

Nemu's a lot more attentive than people give her credit for.

* * *

She's got kitchen duty again. Well, not cooking, because Kana is not allowed to cook ("tell me again why you put prunes in the stew?"). But she still gets stuck with cleaning. She finds herself once again staring at a bucket full of water.

She sees her face staring back at her, distorted slightly with the slight ripples. The water responds so well to her touch. It's almost calling to her.

She looks around to see if anyone's watching, in case anyone will see her being an idiot. There's no one.

Kana sticks her hand in the water and concentrates. Slowly, she lifts her hand out of the bucket. The water follows her hand, standing up in the air. She moves her hand, and the water follows it, like a snake obeying her commands. Her eyes grow wide.

She doesn't see her halo flicker for the first time.

* * *

It's that dream again. The white corridor stretches before her. It looks exactly the same as it has the last few times. She knows that if she looks out the single window, she'll see the moon.

She does it anyway. This time, she sees two moons. It takes her a moment to realize the second is merely a reflection on the ocean. But the difference makes her pause. This is not the same dream.

Once again she starts down the corridor. Once again she sees the open door.

This time, she makes it through.

The door opens into a grotto. Looking up, she can see the moon shining down through a hole in the ceiling of the cavern. The moonlight glistens off the walls; the cavern is made of ice. Except it's warm in here, far too warm for ice to not be melting, and yet the walls are solid. Kana sheds her parka and leaves in a pile on the ground as she steps further into the cavern.

In the center of the grotto, directly under the hole in the ceiling, is a pond, bathed in moonlight. Soft grass surrounds the pond. The water in the pond is crystal clear. Kana peers into the water, staring at the two fish, identical and opposite, black and white, swimming in circles, chasing the other. Around and around they go, like hands on a clock. Never stopping.

Somewhere, she hears waves crashing against the shore.

This place is familiar.

She hears a distant clock ticking.

She knows this place. She's never been here, but she has, and she knows it. Why can't she _remember_?

"Little one, isn't it time you woke up?"

Kana gasps and spins around. There's a man with long, white hair and a long white beard standing there, but she spun too fast and now she's falling, falling backwards into the water.

She wakes up.

She knows that's not what the man meant.

* * *

She's up in the clock tower. It has always been her refuge, and trying to get the old clock working, correctly, has been an idle hobby. But now, now there's a sense of urgency about it. She hears the _tick-tock_ , the crashing of waves upon a distant shore, in the back of her mind. Time is running out, and there's a sense of something she has to do. But she needs to finish this first, because she was never one to leave a task half-done.

She heard Rakka come up the steps a few hours ago and leave a plate of dinner at the top of the stairs. She doesn't have time to stop. She feels bad, because Rakka is a kind soul, and it will hurt her when Kana leaves. But she knows, all the Haibane do, that this is something that must happen.

With a cry, Kana drops the wrench and clutches her head in frustration. It's not working, and she _has_ to make it work. She's running out of time, and they all think she can't make it work. That she's not good enough. Never good enough. There are things she's not meant to do, and why is she trying so hard, and nobody understands. Not her mother or her father or stupid, lovable, idiotic Pakku...

She stops. Breathes in and out shallowly through her mouth.

Slowly, she picks up the wrench. She reaches into the guts of the clock (so unlike the guts of an animal) and tightens the last few screws. Breathes in. Steps back and flips the switch.

 _Tick-tock._

Breathes out.

* * *

She left Old Home without her jacket again. It's winter again, and snow is falling heavily. The others won't even see her tracks leaving to the Wall in the morning. She feels guilty, but they'll understand. It needed to be this way.

She always leaves for good at night.

She can see her breath in the freezing air, illuminated by the light of the moon (she didn't take a flashlight), and wonders if she can make the tiny ice crystals dance like she can make liquid water dance. The moonlight should not be enough to allow her to safely navigate the forest (she remembers the panic when Rakka had fallen down that hidden well), but it is. Strange, but following the path lit by the moon, it's almost as if it's leading her to the Wall.

It wants her home too.

There's a man waiting for her at the Wall. He has a long, white beard, and long, white hair. He is wearing red robes, and his eyes are very old and very wise. Even in this place, Kana can feel his power. It makes sense, after all.

The Avatar is the bridge between the physical and the spiritual worlds. Even when he's dead.

"Little one, are you ready to wake up?"

She ran away because she knew she could be more than they'd let her. In this place, surrounded by a Wall, there are no such barriers. She'll miss the Haibane, and Old Home, and Glie, but there's something she still has to do. She cannot stay here. She's found she would not stay here, even if she could. She's grown and it's time she found her own way.

In the distance, she hears the ocean.

Kana squares her shoulders and looks up at the Avatar's spirit.

"It's time to wake up."

He smiles.

* * *

Kanna wakes up.

It's warm. The ice that she's used to doesn't reach this far south. The tiny Earth Kingdom village has never known the cold she's known all her life. They tell her they pulled her from the wreckage of her tiny skiff. She's been asleep a long time. They weren't sure if she'd ever wake up.

She stands at the edge of the ocean, toes curling into the sand. Her hair is whipping about her face. It's hard to remember that it's no longer short.

The waves crash into the shore with a steady beat, like clock-work. There's a ship leaving tomorrow, traveling south. Kanna already secured passage on it.

She stares up at the moon and thinks of home. It startles her when she realizes that she can't tell if she means the North Pole or if she means Glie. It's probably better this way. Tomorrow, she will leave again. The ocean will take her where she needs to go.

Water is life, and water is death, and above all, water is _change_.

Kanna can't stay here. She has work to do.


End file.
